Are you allowed to park across a driveway?

Mini driver is too close to the vehicle entrance to be within the law

The minimum distance you are allowed to park from a vehicle entrance is one metre. Any closer than this and it makes it difficult for people in larger vehicles to get in and out of the driveway, and you could obstruct emergency services. You are within your rights to call your local council and complain. Parking wardens will take a commonsense view of whether a vehicle is within the one metre or not and whether it actually causes an obstruction. A parking warden will attend and decide whether the vehicle should be ticketed and/or towed.

Different councils may have different processes so it’s best to check their website for instructions; this is from Auckland Transport for vehicles parked across driveways:

Person stopped, parked or stood a vehicle on a road so as to obstruct entry to or exit from any driveway.

Inconsiderate parking includes parking over lines that mark bays so that other vehicles are prevented from parking there, or parking too close to another vehicle which might prevent it from getting out.

Parking too close to a vehicle, blocking it in, might get you an inconsiderate parking fine of $60

Do not take matters into your own hands: if you vandalise or damage the vehicle the police can charge you, and you will have to pay to fix the damage.

Can you park across your own driveway?

You are not allowed to park across your own driveway. There are good reasons for this: traffic wardens can’t tell whether you live there or not, so they will ticket a vehicle across a driveway. If people started parking across their driveways, people who aren’t entitled to would start doing it just because it would be easy to get away with. Emergency services may need to get into the driveway, too.

Parking across the pavement

You are not allowed to block the pavement or park on the pavement. A warden will ticket you.

Parking where there are yellow lines

Volkswagen Beetle driver ignores the yellow lines

Some zones in car parks are painted with yellow lines to stop people parking there. It doesn’t always work. You may or may not get a fine, depending on who owns the land on which you are parking.

Parking outside the lines

Even if there’s nothing else parked, this isn’t a good look.

Blocking shared driveways

You might have a shared driveway if you’re in a block of units or flats, an apartment building, or on a crosslease title. The restrictions to parking will be on the Certificate of Title or in the body corporate rules, along with remedies for people that block the driveway. More details are here.

Parking properly within parking bays

This Land Rover is parked perfectly within the parking bay lines

If there are marked parking bays on the road, your wheels must be within the lines.